Feature

On 20 December, members of the Accelerator Division SRF Electron Linac Department and the Technical Division SRF Development Department successfully brought the first accelerating cavity in Cryomodule 2 to a gradient of 31.5 megavolts per meter, the gradient required for the proposed International Linear Collider. The achievement demonstrates the cavity's successful integration into the cryomodule.

Around the World

The French Linear collider community organised its second “Linear Collider days” last November. The highlights of the meetings, summarised here by three of the organisers, show the diversity of the fields addressed the community and its expertise. The days ended with a special session dedicated to country reports where accelerator and detector activities in different continents were reviewed in the context of their possible future cooperation with France. It served as one of the building blocks in constructing European ILC Community.

Director's Corner

The ILC will be a truly global scientific undertaking when it’s built – but it’s not the only one. The ALMA observatory in Chile for example, built to tell us more about how stars and planets are formed, is run by a collaboration that is distributed around the world. LCC Director Lyn Evans was invited on a field trip to three observatories in Chile as a member of a visiting committee set up by the European Southern Observatory ESO and learned a lot about travel in South America, commissioning telescopes and running large science projects.

In the News

◎高エネルギー加速器研究機構長・鈴木厚人さん「文科省を中心に、どうやって国際協力関係を結ぶかについて検討が始まっており、できるだけ早く国際交渉に入れるよう、基盤をつくっていきたい」(KEK’s Director general Atsuto Suzuki said “The discussion on how to establish the international cooperative relations (for the realization of the ILC) has been started already by the MEXT. We are now developing the basis to enter into the international discussion as soon as possible”.)

岩手日報社が行った県政世論調査で、国際リニアコライダー（ＩＬＣ）計画への関心について、「関心がある」「どちらかといえば関心がある」の回答は合計で６８・３％となり、前年調査を４・３ポイント上回った。(According to the regional opinion polls by Iwate Nippo about the interest to the ILC, 68.3% of the residents of the prefecture answered either “very much interested” or “interested.” The number increased 4.3 points compare to the last year’s polls )

The Higgs might do this by decaying into daughter particles in an unexpected way inside the LHC. “The Higgs is very sensitive to the presence of new particles,” says Matt Strassler of Harvard University.

ＫＥＫが、「国際リニアコライダー（ＩＬＣ）」で使われるのと同じ超電導の大型ユニット「クライオモジュール」を試作し、茨城県つくば市の研究施設の地下に設置した。建設計画が動きだすのをにらみ、実際に電子ビームを走らせ、性能試験を実施する。(KEK completed the assembly of the ILC-size cryomodule unit. Scientists will conduct the performance test using the particle beam, with a view of the project to get a go sign.)

In October, the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Peter Higgs and François Englert for postulating the presence of the particle back in the 1960s, and, in December, the LHC showed how the Higgs boson decays. Will the International Linear Collider, the plans of which were unveiled in June, give up similar secrets when it’s built in a few years’ time?

国際リニアコライダー（ＩＬＣ）の誘致を目指し、県は候補地の北上山地（北上高地）で自然環境調査に着手した。１月下旬の調査開始に向けて、現在は委託業者との契約手続きを行っている。(Iwate prefecture started the natural environment research toward the invitation of the ILC to Kitakami mountains. The prefecture plan to start the research activity in late January.)

Will the International Linear Collider, the plans of which were unveiled in June, give up similar secrets when it’s built in a few years’ time? And let’s not forget about the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, buried deep in the Antarctic ice, which detects the universe’s slipperiest particles is still operational.

２４日に閣議決定された国の平成２６年度予算案に、国際リニアコライダー（ＩＬＣ）計画に関する調査検討費として５千万円が盛り込まれたことについて、達増拓也知事は定例会見で、「ＩＬＣ建設に向け、大きく一歩を踏み出したと思う」と語った。ＩＬＣ関連予算が国の予算案に計上されたのは初めて。(Japanese national budget for the FY2014 was decided by the cabinet on 24 December, which included the 50 million yen research expense for the ILC. This is the first official national budget exclusively assigned to the ILC projject. Tasuya Tasso, the governor of Iwate prefecture said “This is the big step toward the construction of the ILC. )

Japan is about to begin a campaign to sign up support for this international project, which would require US and European participation. Most particle physicists support the ILC but many would like to see what discoveries will come out of the upgraded LHC first. If no new particles emerge, then the higher precision available to the ILC would make building it even more attractive. If another discovery is made at the LHC, then the community might need a different machine to explore the new energy regime.

国際リニアコライダー（ＩＬＣ）について下村博文文部科学相は１３日、要望に訪れた自民党県連（鈴木俊一会長）に対して「ぜひ日本に誘致したいとの思いを強く持っている」と前向きな姿勢を示した。下村文科相は「制度設計などを２、３年かけて検討するというのが政府のスタンスだ。国際的に協力してもらってぜひ日本でやりたい」と踏み込んだ。(Minister of science and technology, Hakubun Shimomura said on 13 December to the members of the Liberal Democratic Party chaper of the Iwate prefecture, “I have a strong desire to invite the ILC to Japan. Government will take few years for the discussion on the items such as institutional design. I would like to realize the ILC in Japan with the cooperation from foreign countries.)